A 4-year-old boy was outside the burning home and his mother was inside trying to rescue the woman when Pittsburgh firefighters arrived on Schenley Manor Drive.

The mother and her child were unharmed, but the other woman -- identified by friends and family as 70-year-old Catherine Ricketts -- died in the fire, according to Sonya Toler, Pittsburgh Public Safety spokesperson.

Ricketts is believed to be the grandmother of the 23-year-old woman who tried to save her.

Ricketts' friend, Margaret Wooding, said the victim had a big heart.

"Anything you wanted, needed, if she had it, you had it," Wooding said. "I love her and she's going to be missed."

An autopsy will determine the cause of death.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. It was only a one-alarm fire, but it was fast enough to take a life and it caused serious damage to the house.

“The firefighters tell me they had it under control relatively quickly," Toler said. "It was not a challenging fire whatsoever. The challenging part, of course, is in losing a life in this blaze.”

Five people lived inside the home. Everyone else was able to escape the blaze.